But her fear now was that if a journalist could get easily get close, so could Miladin Radislav.
She was standing near her balcony when the phone started again. It was DI Reg Williamson, her sometime partner, recently promoted to be her acting boss. The promotion was hers by rights, but she’d had no rights after Milldean. Williamson was conscious of that and never pulled rank on her, treating her as a partner in exactly the same way as before. Indeed, usually deferring to her.
‘Reg,’ she said. ‘Why is it I know you’re not calling for anything good?’
‘Experience?’
‘That would do it.’
‘Actually, it’s not so bad. Wanted you to check on that girl you rescued on the beach. She should be about ready to give a statement about those girls who attacked her.’
EIGHT
At the hospital Sarah Gilchrist went to the private room occupied by the girl she’d rescued from a stoning on the beach. She’d seen a group of teenage girls attacking her at the water’s edge, photographing their assault. When Gilchrist got to her, she found her bloodied, bruised and unconscious, water swirling round her.
The girl was the only child of a single mother who lived on the Milldean estate. Her name was Sarah Jessica Cassidy and she was thirteen. She’d been in intensive care for days, her distraught mother hovering, but now had been moved into this private room. She had no memory of the incident and, miraculously, no permanent physical scarring or damage. She was, however, black and blue all over, with three broken ribs, her left arm in a cast and all the fingers on her right hand taped up.
Gilchrist visited her in her civvies — jeans, white T-shirt and leather jacket. She asked the WPC keeping guard on the door to step inside to witness their conversation.
‘How are you?’ Gilchrist said.
‘You a copper?’
Gilchrist smiled.
‘Is it that obvious?’
Cassidy’s head had been shaved to get at half a dozen or so cuts and gashes on her scalp. Underneath the bruising she was a pretty girl but she had a sullen mouth.
‘When you know what you’re looking for.’ Cassidy gestured at the WPC. ‘Plus, she’s a bit of a giveaway.’
‘I suppose she is,’ Gilchrist said.
Cassidy examined Gilchrist’s face.
‘You the one who found me?’
Gilchrist nodded.
‘They said it was a hefty woman.’
‘Hefty?’ Gilchrist said, glancing at the WPC, who was pretending not to hear.
The girl smirked.
‘Have you caught them?’
‘We’ve been waiting to talk to you. What do you remember?’
‘Nuffink.’
Gilchrist nodded.
‘OK. What’s the last thing you remember?’
‘You walking in and sitting down.’
‘I mean before you were on the beach.’
The girl looked at the ceiling for a minute.
‘Having a McDonald’s.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Were you alone?’
‘Don’t know.’
Gilchrist sighed.
‘Who are your best friends at school?’
‘Don’t have any.’
‘A loner, are you?’
‘Suppose I must be.’
‘Are you popular?’
Cassidy gestured at herself with her taped fingers.
‘Doesn’t seem like it, does it?’
‘Do you have particular enemies?’
‘No.’
Gilchrist glanced again at the WPC who was staring blankly at the opposite wall.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
Cassidy twisted her mouth into a sneer.
‘Did. You lot put him away.’
‘In a youth detention centre?’
Cassidy shook her head. A look that might have been pride came on to her face.
‘In prison.’
Gilchrist sat back.
‘He’s in prison? How old is he?’
A smug expression crossed the young girl’s face.
‘Twenty-two.’
‘And you are?’
‘Coming up to fourteen.’
Gilchrist pursed her lips.
‘What’s he in for?’
Cassidy’s expression changed to something less certain. Something confused.
‘Killing his best friend.’ Gilchrist stared at her. ‘Then chopping him up.’
Gilchrist started.
‘Your boyfriend is Gary Parker?’
The look of pride came back on to Cassidy’s face.
‘You’ve heard of him?’
Some months earlier Gilchrist had taken a call from a man saying that his friend, this Gary Parker, had phoned from Hove to brag he’d just killed his flatmate and dismembered him. Gilchrist had gone to the scene and found the remains of a dead man with various body parts strewn around the flat. An arm had been discovered in a children’s paddling pool on the seafront and Parker had been found sitting under the Palace Pier, cradling his friend’s head in his lap.
Gilchrist found it hard to keep the revulsion off her face as she looked at this young girl bragging that the creature Gilchrist had unfortunately encountered professionally was her boyfriend. She needed to get out. She stood.
‘OK, well, that will do for now. If anything comes back to you before we visit again, just give us a call.’
Gilchrist turned for the door.
‘Have you heard of him?’ Cassidy said.
Gilchrist nodded without looking round.
‘I’ve heard of him.’
As Gilchrist reached the door, Cassidy called: ‘Don’t worry about whoever did this. My dad’ll sort ’em.’
Gilchrist turned.
‘Who’s your dad?’
Cassidy had the smirk on her face again.
‘They’ll wish they’d never been born.’
‘So you do know who they are?’
‘I told you I didn’t.’
‘Then how is your father going to sort them if you don’t know who they are?’
Cassidy gave a little shrug.
‘Does your father live in Milldean?’
Cassidy shook her head.
‘Sarah Jessica, who is your father?’
‘Who said you could use my first name?’
‘Names, actually, Miss Cassidy, names. And, incidentally, if I hadn’t come along when I did, you would quite probably be dead now.’
As she stalked down the corridor, Gilchrist regretted saying that. Her mind was reeling with the thought of this girl with Gary Parker. She was curious about the identity of Cassidy’s father. But most of all, as she glanced at her reflection in the windows she passed, she was thinking of one thing.
‘Hefty?’ she muttered.
On the way out of the hospital Gilchrist bumped into a hard-faced blonde who’d clearly had a boob job and wanted everyone to know it, judging by the amount of cleavage on display.
‘Mrs Cassidy,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Could I have a quick word?’
‘I’ve already told you I don’t know nothing,’ Cassidy said, in a cigarette-wrecked voice.
Gilchrist ushered her over to a bench. When they were seated, Gilchrist said: ‘It’s about her boyfriend.’
Cassidy fished out a cigarette from her coat pocket.
‘My daughter is very independent for her age.’
‘You didn’t mind her going out with a twenty-two-year-old man?’
‘She goes her own way.’
‘You didn’t mind she was probably having sex with a twenty-two-year-old man?’
‘Look, dear, I don’t know about you but I lost mine when I was twelve. To my dad. He’d been poking about before then but he’d always said he’d wait until I was a woman — you know, until I’d started my periods — before he gave me a proper seeing to. And I know you’re not supposed to say this these days about whatchamacallit — incest? — but he was quite good at it. I’d much rather a twenty-two-year-old who knows a bit than a pimply thirteen-year-old who can’t find the right hole to stick it in.’